Donald Trump and maga Republicans like Senator Susan Collins caused Ukaranians enormous stress by showing support for evil Vladimir Putin

The war in Ukraine is becoming very inconvenient for Trump
One of the challenges with writing about the war in — and on — Ukraine is that so little changes. (Senator Susan Collins of Maine,  chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, should hold Donald Trump accountable for withholding Ukrainian military aid allocations❗)

Russian-Ukraine War 😢

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Johan Goldberg

I don’t mean the fighting on the ground, though even there, when viewed from a distance, it doesn’t look as though much has shifted in a long while. Russia has gained very little territory in the last year (even as it has suffered an estimated half-million Russian casualties over the last 12 months). All of that to gain 0.3% of Ukrainian territory (and net zero gains in the last six months). Though distance can be deceiving, the fighting on the ground has actually been far more dynamic, with evolving tactics, strategies, technologies and geopolitics.

What I mean about so little changing are the moral considerations. Ukraine is the victim of a lawless, brutal, unprovoked invasion by a politically backward and dysfunctional would-be empire ruled by a murderous autocrat. That assessment was obvious on February 24, 2022, when the full-scale invasion was launched, and it was obvious in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.

The challenge of writing about the war is that once you’ve said that, saying it again just feels repetitive. This is a bigger problem than one columnist’s selfish desire to say something new. The longer the war has dragged on, the more the war just seems like part of the status quo, the background noise of our politics. This is cruelly unfair to the Ukrainians, because what seems like the “normal” state of things is anything but. Russia targets civilians as a matter of policy. It murders old women in their beds, children in playgrounds, young couples in cafes. And it does this almost daily and it tries to do it almost hourly.

Which is why recent comments by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and his unofficial personal envoy, are so infuriating. “President Putin laid out his line of what he wants to achieve,” Kushner said at the Yalta European Strategy conference on September 5. “If Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, you know, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that.”

Kushner further said he was, as a U.S.-backed mediator, looking for “creative solutions” to the war. He wants to downplay the importance of territory in exchange for potential economic deals that benefit everybody — including presumably the United States and, I assume, Kushner and others in the Trump orbit.

Put aside the grotesque suggestion that Ukrainians are the stumbling block for not wanting to give up yet more territory Russians have failed to win on the battlefield, land that countless Ukrainians have given their lives to defend. Strategically, such a concession would be close to an invitation to suicide. It would require pulling back some 45 miles and forfeiting a Ukrainian “fortress belt” of fortified cities that form the spine of their forward defenses. It would put the rest of Ukraine that much closer to Russian artillery and drones, and force the Ukrainians to defend less defensible ground.

Proponents of such a “deal” argue that it would be worth it for peace. But if you think Russia honors such deals, you haven’t been paying attention. And if you think the Ukrainians have reason to trust Putin, well, I don’t know what to say to you.

The idea that Ukraine is the stumbling block to peace suffuses (i.e., spreads thru) this administration. Vice President (former Marine Corporal)  JD Vance, who has never meaningfully changed his view that he “doesn’t really care” what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other” is evidence of that. But so is Donald Trump.

Just this week, Trump excoriated Ukraine for targeting Russia’s oil infrastructure because it’s creating problems for him. “Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing,” Trump said. “He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel.”

Trump — who endlessly insisted on the campaign trail that he could “end the war in Ukraine in one day”  — doesn’t demand Putin stop murdering Ukrainians. He instead demands that Ukrainians not fight back in a way that inconveniences Trump amid a surge in oil prices overwhelmingly caused by the war Trump started with Iran.

It is victim-blaming on a geopolitical scale and utterly dishonorable.💢

Honor matters in foreign policy, regardless of what supposed foreign policy “realists” claim. Iranian honor, twisted and fanatical though it may be, is why Iran hasn’t bowed to Trump. And Ukrainian national honor is why the Ukrainians don’t want to be erased by a bullying neighbor that says they shouldn’t exist. And it should matter for America, even if it doesn’t matter to the coterie of “dealmakers” who care more about profit.  And that is worth repeating.

X: @JonahDispatch

Donald Trump is a danger to the entire world order he must be removed from office- Senator Susan Collins where are you?

Echo opinion letter published in Lancaster OnLine in Pennsylvania

Previous

Previous

Country’s real problem is all the people who voted for and s…

A lot of people are talking about what a terrible agreement …

Next Up

Next Up

Further reform of pharmacy benefits managers is needed [lett…

Managing prescriptions, doctor visits and insurance appeals …

Trump’s threats of more violence set dangerous ⚠️example for the world [letter]

I am rarely shocked by Donald Trump, but he did say something extraordinarily shocking earlier this month that was barely covered.

On Fox (Fake❗) News, as Vice President JD Vance was in negotiations with Iranian representatives, Trump warned Iran over potentially reclosing the Strait of Hormuz, saying, “You close it and you won’t have a country. You won’t even make it back to your (strong expletive) country.”

Ignore the F-bomb that exemplifies Trump’s inability to regulate his emotions, ignore his now-commonplace threat to destroy the entirety of Iran, and focus on what’s left. The United States and Iran sent envoys to discuss the ceasefire and potential peace plan, and in a moment of belligerent petulance, Trump threatened to murder Iran’s envoys, who subsequently walked out.
Want to talk about Trump’s penchant for breaking norms❓ Threatening envoys has been perhaps the No. 1 diplomatic taboo, dating back more than 2,400 years to the Peloponnesian War. No matter how opposed you are to your enemy, you do not threaten envoys. It guarantees a continuation of violence.

Trump also broke the memorandum of understanding (I.O.W. the useless MOU) requiring both parties to refrain from the threats of force, but who has ever accused Trump of understanding the barest of diplomatic principles❓💢

For centuries, bedrock moral philosophy has rested on the principle that we should act only in ways we would want everyone else to act. Do we want other countries threatening our envoys, ignoring all diplomatic principles and forever escalating the threat of violence❓ If not, we should not do it ourselves.

It’s extraordinary that in our technological society, in which it becomes easier to destroy all of humanity with each passing day, we have even managed to make it to the year 2026. Great leaders of the past, by definition, have set a moral example we can all follow.

With Trump as our failed leader — and, in many respects, the de facto leader of the world — if everyone followed his example of violence, lies and escalation, I can’t imagine humanity would last another decade.

I believe that it’s time to remove Trump from office and roll the dice with (former Marine Corporal) JD Vance.

From Ben Kreider in Lancaster Township, Pennsylvania

Maine Writer P.S. Senator Susan Collins where are you❓

Donald Trump ugly memes might be his audition for a future career

Echo opinion published in the Florida Sun Sentinel

Bedeviled by the pope | Pat Beall

Pat Beall is an editorial writer and columnist for the Sun Sentinel, focusing mainly on Palm Beach County issues.

I imagine what would happen if Pope Leo took my calls❓☎️

He’d be a nice guy, of course. Too polite to point out that I am likely just one more heathen, bound to spend eternity as smoldering charcoal.

“My child,” he’d say, “I understand you have questions about the Antichrist. You are not alone, I assure you."

Oh, I know. A world leader posting an image of himself as Jesus Christ laying hands on what appears to be either Jon Stewart or Jeffrey Epstein is not automatically horn-and-tails material.

Or is it❓

“I thought it was me as a doctor,” Trump said about the ugly picture in his hideous post.

Doctors❓ Only with bombs bursting in air, twin eagles threatening, soldiers flying, a cloaked Trump healing, handfuls of white light and the miracle of thick hair no longer in need of a combover.

Well. That explains the robed surgeons. The winged proctologists.

“All this is giving off Antichrist-adjacent vibes,” I’d fret.

And so I’d lay it out for the pontiff. The Great Deceiver will have one great secret which he will tell no one. (Epstein Files.) He tricks good people who should know better. (The 77 million people who voted for him.)

He will seem to have a mortal ear wound, but lo, it was healed, and the whole earth wondered at this. (Massive cotton wad on ear.)

But mostly, I worry, the big evidence is that every devil comes with their own imp.  I speak now of JD Vance.  (Yes, the Hillbilly.)

“Pope Leo XIV should be careful when he talks about theology,” warned the newbie Catholic convert, threatening the 267th pope in a religion that dates to 30 A.D.  (Maine Writer:  This quote from Hillbilly Vance gets a "dummy" of the year award.)

And this, we should note, is not the first time Vance has tussled with a pope. Back in April 2025, he traveled to Rome to meet with Pope Francis, a fierce critic of Trump’s snatch, imprison and sort it out later immigration policy.

Vance smiled and nodded and held to his belief that ordor amoris, the “order of love,” requires that citizens must prioritize their families and those closest to them. Maybe other people, maybe later on.

He told the pope he would pray for his health. The pope died the next day.

Trump mourned his passing by posting an image of himself as the next pope.

Vance said he embraced Catholicism seven years ago because he was fed up with “a society oriented entirely towards consumption and pleasure.” Like massive ballrooms with grand stairs leading absolutely nowhere. Or a skimpily clad lady in a gigantic martini glass on the lawn of Mar-a-Lago. Or a 💲300,000, two-story high golden statue of yourself at your Doral golf club.

Vance looked at this bright shiny basket of iniquities and announced: “That’s my guy❗”🙄

So too did Trump spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain, who compared the president’s torments to those of Jesus. “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” she mourned. Also? “To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God.”

Then, because Trump cannot help himself, and also because White-Cain told people not to say no, the president followed up with another bit of blasphemy: an image of Jesus with his arm around him, haloed in soft light.

To further prove his spiritual bonafides and teensy-tiny soul, he stripped Catholic Charities of $11 million to house children.

“A lot of people weren’t understanding his humor,” explained Vance of Trump’s holier-than-thou postings.

“Actually, a lot of people were,” the endlessly likeable Leo would tell me on our phone call.

“He is bedeviling us all,” I’d say. “And I’m beginning to think those big ankles are really hooves in hosiery.”

So, is he, or isn’t he❓

“No, Trump is not the devil,” the pope would assure me.

He’s just auditioning for the part.

Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans push illegal Nazi Gestapo tactics without shame or consequences

Echo opinion published in Yahoo.com and Huffington Post by Nathalie Baptiste:

When Donald Trump campaigned for president, he made scores of crazy empty promises to the American people — but he’s only kept one.

In 2024, political pundits and operatives saw affordability as the key issue of the presidential campaign. Trump certainly played it up: On the campaign trail, he pledged that he would bring down inflation and make groceries cheaper again, and when he won, observers credited that strategy for his victory.

One year into his second term, his approval numbers are in the tank, and inflation persists.

But that’s because Donald Trump's real campaign promise wasn’t about the economy. Instead, it was all about racism.

He spouted dehumanizing lies about immigrants, dabbled in eugenics and pledged to conduct mass deportations. “When I win on November 5, the migrant invasion ends, and the restoration of our country begins,” Trump said at a rally in October 2024.

When he got back to the White House, he immediately began delivering on both the explicit promises and the tacit (implied) implications. 

In the last year, Trump has deported immigrants without so much as a trial, defunded government programs dedicated to diversity and inclusion, and deployed thousands of federal agents to blue cities to wreak havoc on people of color and their allies.

"This is the government weaponizing the social and political views of the president,” William Roberts, the senior vice president for rights and justice at the Center for American Progress, a think tank that promotes liberal policies, told HuffPost.

“It’s not just ‘Donald Trump is a racist,’” Roberts said. “It’s Trump’s government engaging in policy-making to harm certain people.”

Donald Trump's real campaign promise wasn’t about the economy. Instead, it was all about racism. Illustration: HuffPost; Photos: Getty

There has been a clear through-line between Trump’s campaign rhetoric and the worst excesses of his second term: During the 2024 presidential campaign, a viral claim about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio — where approximately 10,000 Haitians had arrived in recent years — also caught Trump’s attention. He repeated the racist rumor during a presidential debate with his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Trump’s running mate, (Hillbilly and former Marine Corporal) JD Vance, repeated the rumor, plus added claims of his own, including saying Haitians were bringing diseases to Ohio.

But, wait❗ Hillbilly Vance also essentially admitted that he was lying.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he said in a September 2024, interview with CNN.

Suddenly, Haitian immigrants across the U.S. were targets. Springfield, Ohio, school children were subjected to bomb threats, and in small towns in Pennsylvania and Alabama with significant Haitian populations, residents worried for their safety.

The fact that Trump faced no consequences and instead was rewarded with another shot at the presidency has enabled even more blatant lies about marginalized, often immigrant, populations — with deadly results.

n December 2025, a viral video alleging fraud at Somali-run day cares in the Minneapolis area caught the attention of the Trump administration. Nick Shirley, the right-wing agitator who made the video, claimed that he had uncovered $100 million worth of fraud. (Minnesota officials investigated his claims and, during surprise inspections, found that all the day cares featured in his videos were operating as expected.) But still, Trump sent federal officers to “investigate.”

Before the surge of federal agents into Minnesota, Trump was referring to Somalis, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), as “garbage.”

“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he saidat a Cabinet meeting last November.

But as president, Trump doesn’t merely have to pay lip service to racist internet rumors. He is illegally using the  the full force of the federal government.

The Department of Homeland Security deployed thousands of immigration agents to Minneapolis, which has the largest Somali population in the U.S. Just two days into what DHS referred to as its largest immigration operation ever, 37-year-old 💙Renee Good, 😥a white mother of three who appeared to be engaging in protest, was shot and killed by Jonathan Ross, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, while sitting in her car.

She was only the latest person to be shot by federal officers — joining people like Kevin Porter, who was fatally shot in Los Angeles, and Marimar Martinez, who survived a shooting in Chicago — but her death sparked widespread protests in Minneapolis and beyond.

Evil  ICE doubled down after Ms. Good was killed. Federal agents are seen all over Minneapolis, targeting ordinary people, dragging them from their cars and using pepper spray and other chemical irritants. The city’s public school system shut down for two days and is now offering remote learning for any families who are too fearful to send their children to school.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the largely Somali neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis on December. 9, 2025. AP Photo/Mark Vancleave

Moreover, the government does not make any secret of the philosophy behind the crackdown. The official X/ account of the Department of Homeland Security regularly posts memes and songs popular with white nationalists and Nazis.

“Calling everything you dislike ‘Nazi propaganda’ (how about "gestapo tactics", does that work❓) is tiresome,” a DHS spokesperson told HuffPost in an emailed statement. “DHS will continue to use all tools to communicate with the American people and keep them informed on the illegal historic effort to Make America Safe Again.”

“The administration wants this country to be more white,” Seth Levi, the chief strategy officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told HuffPost. “These are white nationalist beliefs that we’ve seen in the fringes going back decades but it’s becoming mainstream thought by the administration.”

In Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, immigrant communities and their allies have also been subjected to an unprecedented blitz, all previewed by Trump on the campaign trail.

In 2024, Trump said that Aurora, Colorado, a Denver suburb, was a “war zone” being run by members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based criminal organization. But even Republican officials in the city said that the claims were false and that Aurora was safe for families.

“It’s like an invasion from within, and we’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said in September of that year. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora.”

Trump continued on with the fiction in his second term by targeting Latino men across the country and accusing them of being gang members, even if the evidence was thin. In March, the Department of Homeland Security sent hundreds of mostly Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador known for its human rights abuses. The men had not received trials or sentences, and many had no criminal records. 

When advocates filed a lawsuit accusing immigration officers of illegally targeting people based on their race, the Supreme Court — where a full one-third of the justices have been appointed by Trump — ruled 6-3 to allow it. 

Ethnicity, wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his opinion, “can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.”

Imprisoned men crowded into a cell look on as Department of Homeland Security Secretary "Evil ICEQueen" Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) on March 26, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty ImagesMore

Beyond the violence that Trump has the power to enable as president, there are trickle-down effects.😓😒

“It does create a permission structure to say these things out in the open,” Levi said. “These aren’t new feelings or beliefs, but people used to recognize them as taboo and kept them to themselves.”

There’s evidence that racist rhetoric from the upper echelons of government can influence the average American as well. Hateful and bigoted rhetoric online increased after the 2024 election, and a December 2025 Gallup poll found that most Americans believe that political rhetoric has gone too far.

As Trump ramps up his deportation efforts, everyday people are trying to aid him. There have been multipleinstances of people publiclyhelping deportation officers, including by directing them toward immigrants.

“Jim Crow wasn’t held up only with policy but also by regular people,” Roberts said, referring to the set of racially discriminatory laws, violence and social structures that oppressed Black people in the U.S. South for nearly 100 years after the abolition of slavery.

In many ways, it may be too late to put this genie back in the bottle. Immigration enforcement is only the most visible and most recent manifestation of the administration’s agenda.

During his first days in office, Trump signed an executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal government. The administration quickly went to work to fire employees who did diversity work and dismantle programs that didn’t align with their worldview.

Although the executive order didn’t apply to private companies, leaders in the sector followed suit and began pulling back from their DEI pledges as well.

The assault on the government dealt an especially big blow to Black workers, who are overrepresented as federal employees because public sector jobs have been traditionally more welcoming to people of color.

Trump also signed orders that dismantled DEI in K-12 public schools and higher education institutes, while demanding elite colleges turn over their race and admissions data. The administration has been using allegations of antisemitism or claims race is being illegally used as an admissions factor to pressure schools into favoring a more right-wing agenda, even as it puts similar pressures on students themselves. Thousands of international students have lost their ability to study in the U.S.

And DHS officials began targeting college students with opinions it didn’t like, including Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus and was arrested over his beliefs last March.

It’s all happening with at least the excuse, if not genuine belief, that Trump has a mandate from the people. He made it very clear throughout his campaign that mass deportations, demonizing the other and accepting bigotry would dominate his second term.

This is what they voted for. And that is what has happened.

“It’s really emboldening people to treat folks however they want to,” Roberts said. “[His policies] will resurrect a lot of the racial animus that has always lived in America.”

Despite his lofty promises about the economy, affordable groceries and ushering in a new golden age, there appears to be only one true constant of the Trump administration.

“People sometimes have a tendency to overthink and overanalyze because we don’t want to accept the most obvious explanation that’s right in front of us,” Levi said.

“But when the administration is tweeting out Nazi memes and songs, I don’t believe for a second that there’s a nuanced hot take on that,” he continued. “They’re being pretty clear about what their Nazi Gestapo beliefs are.”

Renee Nicole Good an unarmed American citizen was murdered by evil ICE agents when she driving away from the shooter!

Echo opinion letters to The New York Times: Dateline Minneapolis


Re “I’m the Mayor of Minneapolis. Trump Is Lying,”* 🤥by Jacob Frey (Opinion guest essay, January 10)- (see story lead below):

At some point, we have to ask ourselves as Americans whether we are willing to accept a country with no shared moral base line, no principle that rises above political affiliation.

Are we comfortable living in an America where a 37-year-old mother can be shot dead in the street and, almost immediately, have powerful figures justify it or attempt to construct an alternate reality that contradicts what we all plainly witnessed?

Are we comfortable living in an America where an insurrection that threatened our democracy on January 6th is minimized; where foreign and domestic policymakers increasingly act as judge; jury and executioner; and where blatant misinformation is delivered from behind the White House logo from 3D Barbie Karoline Leavitt❓

These are not abstract concerns. They cut to the heart 💔😟of whether we still agree on right and wrong, truth and falsehood, restraint and accountability.

We should be asking ourselves where the line is, and at what point we decide we simply will not tolerate the disregard for the democratic norms and human dignity that generations before us worked to preserve.

Red, purple or blue, the question is not about ideology. It’s about whether we can still come together to defend something as fundamental as basic decency.

From Seth Schlussel in San Francisco, California

To the Editor:  The killing of unarmed American citizen Renee Good by an ICE agent raises an urgent question: If the federal government won’t protect its citizens, when will the states step up? New York has ample but unused leverage to rein in ICE’s increasingly violent operations. It must act immediately to prevent escalating unrest.

Under the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, a constitutional principle articulated in the Tenth Amendment, states cannot be compelled to assist federal law enforcement. This principle affords New York lawful tools not to abolish ICE but to refuse to enable conduct that endangers citizens.

The state could, for example, prohibit rental companies from renting cars to ICE without a judicial warrant, restrict hotels and short-term rentals from staging federal operations without oversight, bar New York-regulated companies from sharing sensitive data with ICE without a criminal warrant or deny state contracts to entities that do business with ICE. These measures would not conflict with federal criminal law, but would ensure New York would not facilitate dangerous and unaccountable (evil❗) ICE operations.

From Alexander Thomson in Ithaca, New York

To the Editor: The recent killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old unarmed American woman, by a federal officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota demands careful legal scrutiny, not political slogans or emotional reactions.

Under well-established constitutional principles and longstanding federal case law, the use of deadly force by a government agent is justified only when there exists an immediate, objective and unavoidable threat to the life of the officer or others. That determination must rest on observable facts at the precise moment of force is used, not on subjective fear or speculative danger.

In cases where an officer stands only a few feet from a vehicle that is stationary or just beginning to move, basic physics, human reaction time and standard police training all indicate that reasonable avenues of evasion are typically available.

Federal courts have repeatedly held that an officer may not voluntarily place himself in the path of a vehicle and then rely on that self-created risk to justify lethal force. The threat must be truly imminent and not reasonably avoidable by other means. This is not an ideological issue; it is a legal one. Whether the constitutional limits on the use of deadly force were respected or violated public trust depends on those limits being applied rigorously, transparently and without exception.

When the state exercises its ultimate power, the burden of justification must be equally exacting.

From Juan Carden in St. Louis, Missouri

To the Editor: Re “Early Comments Cast Doubts Over ICE Inquiry” (news analysis, front page, Jan. 11):

JD Vance’s false claim that ICE agents have “absolute immunity” not only suggests agents have something to hide; it also reveals an ignorance of federal law.

Civil rights crimes perpetrated by ICE agents and their bosses are addressed specifically in Federal Statute 242, “Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law.”

In the Justice Department’s own language: Section 242 makes it a federal crime for a person “acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. If those acts lead to the death of that person, the statue says, punishment could include imprisonment or a death sentence. It offers no immunity.

Statute 242 was intended to protect Renee Good’s civil rights, and the F.B.I. has a responsibility to investigate possible deprivation of those rights. If F.B.I. officials refuse to investigate, wouldn’t they themselves be violating Statute 242, in depriving Ms. Good of the right to due process, as well as of one of her legal protections❓

From Mark Thurmond in Kneeland, California

Jacob Frey the mayor of Minneapolis

*Minneapolis:  On August 1, 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed into the water during rush hour. Thirteen people died, and dozens more were injured.

In the immediate aftermath, the president, a Republican, showed up in a city full of Democrats ready to help.

Minneapolis leaders were passionate and vocal critics of President George W. Bush’s policies at the time. 

But when the crisis struck, it didn’t matter. We were partners in what mattered most: saving lives, steadying our community and rebuilding infrastructure. 

Cities could count on the administration in a crisis. Politics stopped, quite literally, at the water’s edge.

Blue largely Democratic cities like Minneapolis used to be able to count on good-faith partnerships with the federal government under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Under the Biden administration, our police officers worked with federal agents and the U.S. attorney’s office to bring down shooting rates in North Minneapolis. The effort wasn’t political — it was practical, and it continues to keep people safe.

But such partnerships, in both crisis and ordinary governance, are not the experience of big-city Democratic mayors under the Trump administrations. I learned that the hard way in 2020, during the civil unrest that came in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer. I’ll never forget the shock I felt when Donald Trump not only encouraged violence during the unrest, but denied federal approval for disaster relief.

After I learned that a Minneapolis resident had been shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, I didn’t feel the shock in my gut that I felt over five years ago. Nothing about this was shocking. The chaos caused by ICE and the Trump administration have brought Minneapolis to this sadly preventable, although predictable, tragedy. In mid-December, ICE agents were filmed dragging a pregnant woman through the street. Heavily armed agents have been deployed to arrest lone individuals in public libraries and malls. Even in the aftermath of this week’s shooting, ICE agents continued to spread chaos, apparently deploying chemical agents at a local public high school.

The actions of the ICE agents deployed to my city are dangerous, and now, even deadly. But that danger has been compounded by the administration’s claim that the victim committed an act of domestic terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi "Evil ICEDiva" Noem, baselessly insisted the shooting was an act of self-defense. Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the victim, Renee Nicole Good, “behaved horribly” and “ran him over,” referring to the ICE agent. I’ve watched multiple videos, from multiple perspectives — it seems clear that Ms. Good, a mother of three, was trying to leave the scene, not attack an agent.

Renee Nicole Good killed by an evil ICE agent in Minneapolis

The Trump administration’s false narrative about this week’s shooting, and the demonization of the victim, are only part of a bigger lie. It wants the American public to believe that ICE’s heavily militarized crackdown across this country is an effort to keep cities like Minneapolis safe. It is not. It is about vilifying not just immigrants, but all who welcome them and their contributions to our communities. By defending the lie about this clearly avoidable shooting in Minneapolis and refusing to allow Minnesota officials to investigate the crime, the administration is sending a message to the entire country: If you show up for your immigrant neighbors, or even are simply present when those neighbors are taken, your rights will not be protected by the law and your life will be at risk.

Under both the first and second Trump administrations, the country has learned from watching Minneapolis that the federal government holds no regard for cities or the people who live in them. When coupled with this administration’s open contempt for democratic norms — indeed, our Constitution — this is a threat to the long-term endurance of our Republic.

My hope is for no more of my fellow mayors find their cities in this administration’s cross hairs. 

But, for those who do, here is my advice: The best thing you can do is to build cities that work, and love those streets and those citizens above any ideology. By bringing down violent crime, Minneapolis has been able to successfully push back against those who have tried to portray our city as a postapocalyptic hellscape. By building housing and focusing on affordability, we have made our city a place that immigrants, transplants and native Minneapolitans can all call home. By supporting immigrant-owned small businesses, our city has become living proof that immigrants make our city and our nation stronger.

Cities are on the front lines of this dark hour in our national politics. But after we weather this moment — and we will weather it — it will be on us to light the way forward. The best way to convince the country that welcoming and lifting up immigrants is good for its communities is by proving it in our own cities.